Notice2025-22134
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; National Survey of Children's Health
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Published
December 5, 2025
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentCensus Bureau
Abstract
The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the proposed revision of the National Survey of Children's Health, prior to the submission of the information collection request (ICR) to OMB for approval.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 232 (Friday, December 5, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 232 (Friday, December 5, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56128-56130]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-22134]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment
Request; National Survey of Children's Health
AGENCY: U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of information collection, request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites the general public and other
Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information
collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information
collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The
purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the
proposed revision of the National Survey of Children's Health, prior to
the submission of the information collection request (ICR) to OMB for
approval.
DATES: To ensure consideration, comments regarding this proposed
information collection must be received on or before February 3, 2026.
ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by
email to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c8898c8c98e6869b8b80e684a1bbbc88abada6bbbdbbe6afa7be"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fbbabfbfabd5b5a8b8b3d5b792888fbb989e95888e88d59c948d">[email protected]</span></a>. Please reference National Survey of
Children's Health in the subject line of your comments. You may also
submit comments, identified by Docket Number USBC-2025-0137, to the
Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>. All comments
received are part of the public record. No comments will be posted to
<a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a> for public viewing until after the comment
period has closed. Comments will generally be posted without change.
All Personally Identifiable Information (for example, name and address)
voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do
not submit Confidential Business Information or otherwise sensitive or
protected information. You may submit attachments to electronic
comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or
specific questions related to collection activities should be directed
to Christine Flanagan Borman, Survey Director, by way of phone (301-
763-4315) or email (<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#96f5fee4ffe5e2fff8f3b8f0faf7f8f7f1f7f8b8f4f9e4fbf7f8d6f5f3f8e5e3e5b8f1f9e0"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="0c6f647e657f78656269226a606d626d6b6d62226e637e616d624c6f69627f797f226b637a">[email protected]</span></a>).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Abstract
Sponsored primarily by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services' Health Resources Services Administration's Maternal and Child
Health Bureau (HRSA MCHB), the National Survey of Children's Health
(NSCH) is designed to produce data on the physical and emotional health
of children under 18 years of age who live in the United States. For
each year of the NSCH annual survey, there are a variety of partnering
agencies that sponsor supplemental content on the NSCH. Partnering
agencies that have
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participated in prior cycles of the NSCH include the United States
Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Partnering
agencies may decide to provide support between now and the submission
of the full ICR. A full list of these partnering agencies will be
included within the Supporting Statements. The upcoming cycle of the
NSCH also plans to include state oversamples again. These oversamples
are sponsored by the interested state and support more targeted
assessment, program planning, and evaluation within their state.
The NSCH collects information on factors related to the well-being
of children, including access to health care, in-home medical care,
family interactions, parental health, school and after-school
experiences, and neighborhood characteristics. The goal of the 2026
NSCH is to provide HRSA MCHB, the supplemental sponsoring agencies,
states, and other data users with the necessary data to support the
production of national estimates yearly and state- or region-based
estimates with pooled samples on the health and well-being of children,
their families, and their communities as well as estimates of the
prevalence of and impact on children with special health care needs.
The MCHB sponsored NSCH sample plus the separately sponsored state-
based oversamples will be approximately 400,000 addresses for the 2026
NSCH.
NSCH is seeking clearance to make the following changes:
<bullet> Increased sample size--The MCHB sponsored NSCH sample plus
the separately sponsored age-, state-, or region-based oversamples will
be approximately 400,000 addresses for the 2026 NSCH, compared with
360,000 in 2025. The increased sample will allow individual states and
agencies to produce statistically sound child health estimates in a
fewer number of pooled years than if the sample were to remain the same
annually, thereby resulting in more timely state- and region-based
health estimates of children. For example, more states can anticipate
having 1,500 interviews with two years of data, an important threshold
for a number of state-level health indicators.
<bullet> Revised questionnaire content--Newly proposed and revised
NSCH content from the sponsors at HRSA MCHB underwent a 9-person
cognitive test \1\ and/or expert review. This testing was conducted by
one of the survey methodology areas within the Census Bureau. Based on
the results, a list of modified content will be included in the full
OMB ICR for the 2026 NSCH.
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\1\ Paperwork Reduction Act Guidance <a href="https://pra.digital.gov/do-i-need-clearance/">https://pra.digital.gov/do-i-need-clearance/</a>.
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<bullet> Oversamples \2\--In order to inform various priorities
that are otherwise not supported by the NSCH base sample, some
stakeholders are interested in sponsoring an oversample of particular
populations as part of the annual NSCH administration. Currently, there
are nine states interested in contributing to an oversample as part of
the 2026 NSCH. All nine states (California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska,
New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) have been
oversampled in one or more previous cycle(s) of the NSCH since 2020 and
are continuing with the option as part of the 2026 NSCH.
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\2\ State Oversampling in the National Survey of Children's
Health: Feasibility, Cost, and Alternative Approaches <a href="https://census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/nsch/NSCH_State_Oversample_Summary_Document.pdf">https://census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/nsch/NSCH_State_Oversample_Summary_Document.pdf</a>.
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<bullet> Collect respondent information on mail-return screener
instruments--Respondent name, email address, and phone number will be
collected on the paper screener questionnaire and a mail-returnable
screener card. This information will be used to encourage households
with children to complete the remaining elements of the interview
through email and telephone reminders. The mail-returnable screener
card will be deployed as a test to approximately 70,000 addresses.
Besides the proposed changes listed above, the 2026 NSCH will
proceed with the current design outlined in the previous OMB ICR
package, including the use of incentives. Response rates for the
unconditional monetary incentive group continues to show a
statistically significant difference over the control group that did
not receive an unconditional monetary incentive. As part of the initial
screener mailing, 90% will include $5 and 10% will not receive an
incentive. The incentive assignment to each sampled address will still
be random as was done in prior cycles and approved by OMB. In the final
screener mailing, a subset of approximately 10,000 households with
children that started the web instrument but did not finish will
receive a final web push invite with a secondary unconditional
incentive in an attempt to have the household log back into the web
instrument and finish the survey. For those households that are
eligible for an initial paper topical mailing, this package will also
include an additional $5 incentive. Additional incentives and mailing
strategies may be used to both reduce nonresponse bias and improve
response rates, including email and telephone reminders, per request of
the sponsor and as funding allows. We will continue to make
modifications to data collection strategies based on modeled
information about paper or internet response preference. Results from
prior survey cycles will continue to be used to inform the decisions
made regarding future cycles of the NSCH.
From prior cycles of the NSCH, using American Association for
Public Opinion Research definitions of response, we can expect for the
2026 NSCH an overall screener completion rate to be about 40.1% and an
overall topical completion rate to be about 26.3%.\3\ This is different
from the overall response rate, which we expect to be about 36.3%.\4\
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\3\ Screener Completion Rate is the proportion of screener-
eligible households (i.e., occupied residences) that completed a
screener. It is equal to (S+X)/(S+X+R+e(UR+UO)), where S is the
count of completed screeners with children, X is completed screeners
without children, R is screener refusals, and e(UR+UO) is the
estimated count of screener eligible households among nonresponding
addresses. The Topical Completion Rate is the proportion of topical-
eligible households (i.e., occupied residences with children
present) that completed a topical questionnaire. It is equal to I/
HCt, where I is the count of completed topicals and HCt is the
estimated count of households with children in the sample or
S+R+(S+R)/(S+X+R)*e(UR+UO).
\4\ Overall Response Rate is the probability a resolved address
completes a screener questionnaire and then, when eligible,
completes a topical questionnaire.
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II. Method of Collection
The 2026 NSCH plan for the web push data collection design includes
approximately 70% of the production addresses receiving an initial
invite with instructions on how to complete an English or Spanish-
language screener questionnaire via the web. This group will receive
two web survey invitation letters requesting their participation in the
survey prior to receiving up to two additional paper screener
questionnaires in the second and third follow-up mailings. Households
that decide to complete the web-based survey will be taken through the
screener questionnaire to determine if they are eligible for one of
three topical instruments. Households that list at least one child who
is 0 to 17 years old in the screener are directed into a topical
questionnaire immediately after the last screener question. If a
household in the web push treatment group decides to complete the paper
screener, the household will receive an
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additional topical questionnaire incentive.
The 2026 NSCH plan for the mixed-mode data collection design
includes up to 30% of the production addresses receiving a paper
screener questionnaire in the initial mailing with instructions on how
to complete an English or Spanish language screener questionnaire via
the web as well. This group will receive both a web survey invitation
letter along with a mailed paper screener questionnaire with either the
initial invitation or the first follow-up and each additional
nonresponse follow-up mailing. Households that decide to complete the
web-based survey will follow the same screener and topical selection
path as the web push. Households that choose to complete the paper
screener questionnaire rather than completing the survey on the
internet and that have eligible children will be mailed a paper topical
questionnaire upon receipt of their completed paper screener at the
Census Bureau's National Processing Center. If a household in the
mixed-mode group chooses to complete the paper screener instead of
completing the web-based screener via the internet, then the household
will receive an additional topical questionnaire incentive.
III. Data
OMB Control Number: 0607-0990.
Form Number(s): NSCH-S1 (English Screener), NSCH-T1 (English
Topical for 0- to 5-year-old children), NSCH-T2 (English Topical for 6-
to 11-year-old children), NSCH-T3 (English Topical for 12- to 17-year-
old children), NSCH-S-S1 (Spanish Screener), NSCH-S-T1 (Spanish Topical
for 0- to 5-year-old children), NSCH-S-T2 (Spanish Topical for 6- to
11-year-old children), and NSCH-S-T3 (Spanish Topical for 12- to 17-
year-old children).
Type of Review: Regular submission, Request for a Revision of a
Currently Approved Collection.
Affected Public: Individuals and households.
Estimated Number of Respondents: 122,461.
Estimated Time per Response: 5 minutes per screener response and
35-36 minutes per topical response, which in total is approximately 40-
41 minutes for households with eligible children.
Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 42,496.
Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: $0 (This is not the cost of
respondents' time, but the indirect costs respondents may incur for
such things as purchases of specialized software or hardware needed to
report, or expenditures for accounting or records maintenance services
required specifically by the collection.)
Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. 8(b); Section 501(a)(2) of the
Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 701).
IV. Request for Comments
We are soliciting public comments to permit the Department/Bureau
to: (a) Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is
necessary for the proper functions of the Department, including whether
the information will have practical utility; (b) Evaluate the accuracy
of our estimate of the time and cost burden for this proposed
collection, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions
used; (c) Evaluate ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of
the information to be collected; and (d) Minimize the reporting burden
on those who are to respond, including the use of automated collection
techniques or other forms of information technology.
Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of
public record. We will include, or summarize, each comment in our
request to OMB to approve this ICR. Before including your address,
phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information
in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment--
including your personal identifying information--may be made publicly
available at any time. While you may ask us in your comment to withhold
your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot
guarantee that we will be able to do so.
Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental PRA Compliance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2025-22134 Filed 12-4-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P
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